This Type 1A project is working to increase the number of graduates receiving baccalaureate degrees in STEM through focused recruiting, early academic support, and ongoing mentoring and student engagement. These activities build on existing support structures at the university and adapt effective practices from other universities to increase STEM enrollment and to reduce attrition among first- and second-year students. The recruiting efforts include evidence-based practices for non-traditional recruiting of underrepresented minorities through contact with parents, churches, and other community organizations. Early academic support features a five-week credit-bearing residential bridge program to address common deficiencies in mathematics, longitudinal learning communities to establish a system of major-oriented peer support, and peer-led supplemental instruction to improve student performance in key freshman- and sophomore-level introductory courses in the STEM programs. Ongoing mentoring and student engagement build on the university's prior success in placing students in undergraduate research positions and internships with university faculty and regional STEM-related employers. The STEP to Success Program is expected to increase enrollment of first-time freshmen in STEM majors by 20% and increase year-to-year retention by 10 percentage points, producing 16 additional STEM graduates per year by the end of the award period, including at least 10 per year from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its goal of establishing a lasting institutional infrastructure to continue its targeted recruiting efforts, early academic support, and provision of opportunities for student participation in research and internships. The project is exercising broader impact by working through an existing network of sister Historically Black Colleges and Universities to disseminate the results and findings of the project and offer training to faculty, administrators, and students at other institutions interested in replicating the approaches the project is finding most effective.
